


Red

by finestsince



Category: The 100
Genre: F/M, Mild Angst, Spoilers for 2x09
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-29
Updated: 2015-01-29
Packaged: 2018-03-09 13:48:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,833
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3252107
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/finestsince/pseuds/finestsince
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clarke tries to come to terms with her love for Bellamy, but she can't come to terms with the loss whilst leading her people. Loving him is weakness, but not loving him might yield something even worse.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Red

_Fighting with him was like trying to solve a crossword and realizing there’s no right answer,_  
Regretting him was like wishing you never found out that love could be that strong.  
Taylor Swift-Red

Clarke never planned this; never dreamed about it in the rests between running and fighting and aching for her lost friends. Not once did she imagine, as she and Bellamy fought for control when they first landed, that at any point in the near future would she crave his voice, his care, his touch like the hunger that sometimes ate away at her stomach. Both the food and the man were a necessity for happiness.

The spark was when she was trudging the hard ground around the edges of camp after the massacre, replaying the slaughter that she’d walked in on earlier, merging it into black and white, scratching out Finn’s face and speeding up the scene, as if somehow it’d become so blurred that it’d erase completely from her memory. But it won’t, it won’t, it just won’t and goddammit she just-she just needs someone-someone who’s not Finn, not the adults, not a stranger. She needs him, needs him so badly that the desire burns her throat and spills liquid fire onto her cheeks, stinging her cut face. 

“Clarke?” Bellamy’s voice calls, and she hears his footsteps on the ground, knows, would know by feeling alone that he’d come again to help her. Despite the fighting they’d first thrown up as a defence, the rightness of his presence now seems to settle in her bones like the deep heat cream they’d sometimes use on the Arc; a slow burn with the hint of a subsistent itch for something else, something more-

“Clarke, what’s going on? We were wondering where you were-hey,” he paused when he saw her eyes were red from crying, over a mouth set in a line hard enough to keep in confessions yet untold. He stepped closer and bracketed her arms

“Hey,” he repeated, gently, shifting his weight onto his other foot so that he could get a better angle into her face, “Finn?” he asked simply, and there it was, there it is Clarke, an easy route out, one that required little to no explanation and wouldn’t be questioned, one that’d be completely understandable after the recent events. What was less understandable was the way she couldn’t quite look Bellamy in the eye, instead letting her gaze wander down his black-clad body to his feet as she opened her mouth to speak.

“How-how could he? How could he Bellamy? They were unarmed; they were-there were children there!” She hissed desperately, finally snapping her gaze to his and spinning on her heel as she saw his pity.

“I’m sorry, Clarke, if I’d have known-”

“Known what, that he was a cold blooded killer? You did know that Bellamy, you said it yourself! You saw him execute the grounder, you knew!” She snapped at him, knowing the punch to the gut that would follow.

“And what, I would’ve had to kill him to stop him going after you! He loves you, Clarke-he’s in love with you!” and, to Bellamy’s ears, that was a sentence spelt too close to the edge of a jealous confession, so instead of calming down and telling her it’s going to be ok, he followed it up with “So screw you if you thought I knew what was gonna happen, Princess, because it wasn’t like that and you know it.” 

He ended up behind her, stepping forward as he spat out the words with the next poison dart aimed on his tongue when he spun her round by the shoulders and her face stopped him dead, stopped his heart for a moment because goddamit but he just couldn’t see her in this much pain. 

“Oh, Princess,” he muttered into her hair, smoothing it down with his hand and trying to erase the face screwed up in agony on the girl he’d follow anywhere.

“I-I’m sorry,” she sobbed into his chest, small hands coming up to hide her face further, but he pulled away and pulled her hands down and cupped her face in his own as if it were the last light in a dying night. 

“Clarke-no, Clarke, look at me-I’m sorry, ok? I’m sorry it was him, I’m sorry you had to see that-it’s not your fault, not at all, and I promise, I promise, we’re going to get him back. Clarke-Princess, please,” His voice dropped to a whisper at the last part as he pressed his forehead against hers, willing the oath of undying loyalty and need for her to be ok into her confused and overrun head. “No matter what, Clarke, I swear, he’s going to be ok. You’re going to be ok.” And the way her lips parted under his own after that promise, the way hands came to pull at his hair, the way she grasped his jaw to pull him closer had him believing, if only for a second, that even if he couldn’t keep his promise, that even if the boy who went crazy over her loss were to never return to himself, that they would be enough. That he would be enough. That, when faced with the choice between bent or broken, she’d pick him up and piece him back together with a heart that she’d already given to another. 

Painfully enough, it was her tugging his lip between her teeth and kissing the corner of his mouth that had him free falling back into reality- this wasn’t her, not really, nor his Clarke. Too much. Too much desperation, really, too much pain. She was in too much agony to really process what was going on, what this meant to Bellamy. But screw it if that was going to stop him loving her, and it was the point where Finn strode out after being pardoned and sat opposite her, and Bellamy saw that behind her cataract of unforgiving steel, diamond belief was struggling to pierce through the veil, and no matter how many times he knew he’d throw his life away for her, she’d made her reality one where Finn was the sole saviour, the single boy she couldn’t live without. 

 

And now Prince Charming’s dead by the hand of his Princess, and Bellamy’s stomach coils like poison each time he’s tugged away from the group, or makes the mistake of following Clarke when she seeks privacy to comfort her. A mistake he’d make a thousand times, and a thousand times again, because the poison only lasts as long as she tugs him closer by the hem of shirt and drinks his works like liquor, drunk into a stupor from which she never returns when she’s with Bellamy; and this is what he hates. He hates the way she won’t say his name when they’re together, holding each other until their absence won’t be ignored any longer. Resents the way her nails dig into his neck and fingers bruise his jaw trying to inch him closer. Loathes her eyes; hates them the most for their absence of emotion, and even if her mouth is warm under his, her heart is cold, cold, colder than he’s ever know it. 

It’s the time that he follows her and kisses her and holds her tenderly after she admits that she couldn’t lose him too that he believes, really, that Clarke is coming around. That maybe, just possibly, she’s recovering slowly from Finn, and she’ll open her heart to him and quit shutting him out. 

It’s not poison, he realises, when she breaks away from him as her mother calls her name, walking quickly out of the shelter of trees without a glance back; it’s a drug. Its heroin, cocaine, ecstasy that he inhales from her breath and it’s killing him quicker than any poison ever could. But the only thing worse than taking it and dying is not taking it and walking through hellfire for the rest of his life, so he lets out a breath and walks calmly after her, resisting the urge to save himself and following the supplier instead.

 

“It’s worth the risk.” 

Bellamy hears the words, but they don’t compute until he glances up at her face and sees the soft curve of her lips now unanimated, the burnt amber of passionate fire in her eyes frozen to an entity harder that diamond. 

“Weakness.” He remembers hearing the word during the burial ceremony, watching as Lexa spoke to Clarke about the pain of loss and love, and a new fire burns inside of him, searing its way through him until they empty into open air. But, like Clarke’s, this new reality seems adept at putting out fires, and all that remains is;  
“I thought you said it wasn’t worth the risk.” Deflated. Please, Clarke, don’t do this. Don’t push me away. Don’t shut me out. But he turns before he can see the look in her eyes again, clenching his jaw and swallowing, hard.

He misses the way Clarke’s jaw tightens, quickly, and then relaxes back into inertia. The others would think it was stress, or miss it completely, but Bellamy, had he seen, would have known the tick for what it was. Whether it would have helped the situation or not is a different story. 

But regret never does help anyone.

 

It’s worth the risk echoes through his mind as Lincoln guides him back through the passages to Mount Weather and as the high fades and his mind becomes sick with distance, he realises them for what they really are. Love is weakness. Well, and he’d get everyone back, whether it killed him or not. But Gods, Clarke, may we meet again.


	2. Alone

_When you fall in love, you can’t help it when you look like a fool,_  
On a night like this, just don’t know what I’m trying to prove.  
Jessie J 

It had been said once that Aphrodite, Greek Goddess of Love, had the most unimaginably beautiful face, shifting in appearance to suit the desires of any man before her. It was told that her aura alone made men gravitate towards her as naturally as water over a fall-only, Clarke thought, to be plummeted to their demise. Well, and if Bellamy was Aphrodite in this little analogy, she was certainly no conquest to be had. In the stolen moments they’d had, she was easily able to overwhelm the devotion threatening to spill from her mouth with hot tongues and sharp nails through dark hair. And so she’d turned to him yesterday, this man, this terrifying boy whom she couldn’t lose but had to give up and told him that it’d be worth the risk.  
Worth the risk. Worth the risk to dive into that hell of a bunker and not know if he’d ever return to her. Worth the risk of having not one, but two of the boys she loves (loved) spill their blood on her hands-Finn’s was already staining her wrists and creeping its way up her arms each night in her dreams, if Bellamy were to not return-  
“Clarke!” Someone calls from up ahead, where they’re following a slower route to get as close to Mount Weather as possible. And the questions come. Thick and fast from all around her, from the adults as well as the kids she’d landed with who were still here; thank the gods, because she was beginning to forget why she had to be so cold in the first place. These lives, Clarke. Each one you cling to, each one you love, will be another knife in the gut when they’re poisoned or shot. Love is Weakness. Lexa’s voice echoed in her head with each step she took.

Step. Weakness. Step. Weakness. Step. Weakness. 

This nightmare, this unimaginable reality tears her with each second, but in the time between, she somehow manages to catch each piece of her threatening to fall down and swallow it whole, unbalanced between the cold indifference that had settled into her and the blazing needles in her feet, begging her with every breath to run for Bellamy. But she trudges on, because she must, because she’s a leader now, and a murderer and a traitor to Finn and all that needs to be buried beneath something. 

 

The infiltration has gone spectacularly badly. If it weren’t for Bellamy’s steel will in the middle of the confusion, he didn’t know how things would’ve turned out; 7 of them have been caught in the crossfire as it is, and by the time he’s finished feeling sick about the grounders and friends locked in cages, he’s up on the surface again. The cold metal of the wheel is shocking in his hands as he goes to open it, and for a moment he reaches back, shutting his eyes and praying that he’ll either never see Clarke again or that she’s the first face he sees when he opens the door. People are nervous behind him, restless. He forgets they haven’t seen the adults yet, and understands. He opens the door.

 

As it turns out, neither of his wishes come true, as Clarke is mysteriously absent from the welcome ceremony with her mom simply giving him a worried look when he asks and telling him she went out to hunt for the arrival. That doesn’t sound like her, missing her friends return, but then again, she hasn’t been herself lately and Bellamy swallows and nods, clutching Octavia’s back as she runs up to his for a hug.   
“I knew it, Bel, I knew you’d make it,” she whispers into his shoulder, and his heartache, if anything, deepens.

“Thanks, O.” He replies, letting her go and looking around the makeshift camp they’d been led to not far away from the open hatch to Mount Weather. Octavia looks up at him again, this time with a worry crease in her forehead. But the words between them remain unsaid, and Bellamy squeezes her arm one last time before sorting out reports and getting back to his tent.

 

 

It’s not that Clarke doesn’t want to see him, she absolutely does, but there are a thousand ways the thing could go and none of them she wants to play out. Because, and really, it came down to this: either she reconciles with him, apologizes, let’s the weakness through like water through a crack in a damn, or she shuns him coldly, keeps her mind blank and loses the one person on this godforsaken earth that means the most to her. Loses him for good, because god knows he’s not the type to wait around for any girl, even one as strong minded as her. Especially one as strong minded as her.

And yet, she finds herself wondering, picking at the earth beneath her feet, there’s something about him, something she knows. Perhaps the way, always in her peripheral, she can see his gaze, the way she knew he always had her back, always shifts closer, always would be a constant in her life. Perhaps it was his jaw, the way she saw it tick when someone threatened her; which, let’s be honest, was a fair amount. And maybe, just maybe, it was those times, those seconds before they kissed, before she dragged his mouth to hers in order to drown the noise in her head, where he would simply hold her face and search her eyes, stroking his thumb over her cheek. Gentleness her mind supplies, compassion. Love. 

Fear stirred in her like dust. That weakness she’d become to understand, slowly melting, breaking, and reforming into something less abstract, more solid. Taller, and more humane, until Bellamy stood in her mind’s eye with his arms crossed across his chest as he leant against a doorway or a tree shifting into something else, some memory of him fighting and shouting and protecting, laughing and smiling and bloodied, moving like a panther with no fear and no hesitation to save his sister, or her, or anyone of their friends.

Well, and that settled it. No matter her whirlwind mind, her foolish acceptance of Lexa’s mantra-she’d return to camp to find her friends back, to heal the wounded, to give what little game she’d caught to the cooks, and to return to herself. To return to Bellamy. Because, after all, Bellamy loved and Bellamy fought and he was the strongest person she’d ever seen. She saw now, these two invaders were not joined by the hip, but rather completely separate entities. Love. Weakness. Strength. She picked the two she liked the most, and headed back to camp with a lighter feeling in her chest than she could ever remember having.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Second Chapter up, whaddya think? :)


	3. Begin Again

_I’ve been spending the last eight months  
Thinking all love ever does is break  
And burn  
And end;  
But on a Wednesday in a café I watched it begin again.  
Taylor Swift _

In the end, it’s Bellamy who finds Clarke, despite her resolve.  
It’s on the evening of the same day the group are returned from Mount Weather, and everyone in the camp’s busy peacekeeping between the grounders, salvaging what can be kept and healing the wounded. 

She’s sitting in her tent, cross legged on the floor when he tweaks the entrance flaps to check she’s in there. Dusk is beginning to settle its comforting arms around them, the crepuscule seemingly foreshadowing the shift that’s about to come in their relationship, though whether for good or for ill Bellamy hasn’t yet discovered.  
Clarke doesn’t turn around as he enters; sighing quietly and putting down the pencil she’d previously held. The paper in front of her is blank, and Bellamy quickly wonders if it’s for lack of a muse.

“Clarke.” She was looking up now, ready to turn.

“Bellamy.”

A shout echoed, somewhere behind them in the camp but was swallowed whole by the silence that pervaded. Except-except, Bellamy thought, the twitch in the corner of her mouth looked like something hopeful, and the strings of his heart were drawn up with her mouth. 

“I-Bellamy Come, sit.” There was nothing to move, really, not much having being stored in the one small tent. So Bellamy padded over to her slowly in lieu of startling her away, not knowing that her heart was now as unbreakable as a diamond, having the weight of the world on her shoulders and surviving. He always knew that, knew she’d come through, knew she’d recover and crack her icy façade after associating all love with weakness. He’d hoped. 

But now he saw it, saw even in her profile, would see if she were a thousand steps away that she had changed; that she had matured. The lips which he’d kissed as gently as possible and which had pushed back with desperation, the same ones which had been pressed hard and tight to keep in all the pain only a few days ago now moved slowly as she began to talk. Not in the hurried way they used to when they fought and kissed, or in the rigid way when she fell numb, but a controlled way; a woman’s way when she knew what she was saying.

Her hands, which so often shivered at his touch, as he held her face sometimes, were now gentle but firm as they took his right hand and held it between both of hers. She gazed down at it as if in wonder and laughed. And how he’d missed that sound, so much that when it sprang forth from her lips all he could do was grin along with her, a huge weight falling off his shoulders and buoying him up instead. 

“Bellamy, I should explain. I’m sorry.” He shifted to look at her expecting for her to turn her face back to his hand still resting in her lap between hers but instead she slowly looked into his face and smiled softly.

“Really, I am. It’s weird, you know, with Finn; I just kind of fell into pace with him. It seemed normal, safe. I had to protect everyone, and that included him. Which is shy I think, even when he changed, even with all that blood on his hands, I had to protect him still. Until the end. Until his fight was over.” 

Now she looked backed down to his palm, turning it up in her palm as Bellamy watched her with his mouth quirking up at the feel of her hands around his. Gentle, as if the desperation had somehow receded with the time apart under imminent death. 

“But then I-I’ve never, couldn’t get how I was supposed to live without him, and you know, I realised that wasn’t it, not really. I could live without him-I was already doing it. Still walking, still breathing, right? But when Lexa told me to realise love for what it really was, I didn’t think I had another option, not really. You weren’t the way out for me, because even when I was around you it felt like I was cheating on Finn, like I’d gotten him out just to get to you.”

She was silent for a moment, sighing again before finally looking back up into his eyes again.

“It’s not true, Bel. I know that now; I’ve just never been through that kind of thing before-not that pain. Killing him myself. I had to turn it off, just for a bit. Just to get through; that’s what I thought. And then I couldn’t stop, I couldn’t think of anything but coldness and selfishness, so I took you before I’d really told you anything and I still thought the way I loved you was weakness. Which is why, you know, all the kissing and no talking.” Their smiles matched now, and Bellamy reached up to stroke her cheek with his left hand as she clutched his right even tighter.

“I love you, Bellamy. I love you and it’s not weakness, because I’d do anything to save you and that’s not weak.” He nodded and smiled at her gently, stroking her hair back from her face and resting their foreheads together.

“I love you, too, Princess.”

Her mouth tasted the same way it always had and yet somehow different, somehow hotter and sweeter than he remembered. Hands that used to leave marks on his neck now smoothed up his back and carded slowly through his hair in pace with their kiss. He shifted back so that he was leaning against the only box in the room and drew her into his lap. She curled onto him as if this were more natural that breathing, and he hugged her to him closely, stroking a hand up and down her arm as she turned her head to place small kisses onto his jaw.

“It wasn’t worth it, Bellamy.” She finally whispered into the hollow of his neck, her breath tickling him in a way that he wouldn't tire of anytime soon.  
“If this is the end result,” he whispered back, “then I think it was”.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's it, folks! Thanks for reading, leave a comment if you have a sec :)

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading everyone! Leave a comment if you have a minute, everything's helpful :) Hope you enjoyed!


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